School Sisters of Notre Dame face challenge of closing facilities

During most of her 50 years as a School Sister of Notre Dame, Sister Charmaine Krohe worked to build up the church and the local community.

In addition to founding the St. Ambrose Outreach Center, she has worked among the northwest Baltimore community to feed people, educate children and get people jobs.

Now as the Atlantic-Midwest Province’s provincial leader, she faces the prospect of a shrinking and aging religious population, few new vocations and the necessary task of closing S.S.N.D. facilities.

“We don’t feel that’s the end of religious life,” Sister Charmaine said. “We think it’s evolving into something new.”

The S.S.N.D.s have seen growth in Africa, Hungary and Poland. In fact, just 1,000 of the world’s 2,000 School Sisters minister in the United States. Of the Atlantic-Midwest Province’s 381 sisters, 323 are over age 70.

“We have sisters in their 90s who are active, very present to the needs around them, try to be involved in responding to the needs around them,” Sister Charmaine added.

Still, some changes are necessary if the sisters are to continue their mission.

During a property stewardship study conducted from 2012 to 2016, the provincial council decided to close the Maria Health Care Center at Villa Assumpta on North Charles Street. The sisters were moved to Stella Maris in Timonium in June. The council is still considering options for the remaining 40-plus sisters at Villa Assumpta. The facility is for sale and will close once the remaining sisters find a new home.

Two other convents, one in Canada and the other in Connecticut, are also closing. The sale of Notre Dame Convent in Ontario will be completed by the end of December. An international school will occupy the first two floors while sisters will move to leased space on the top two floors. The school is in keeping with the S.S.N.D. mission and it is hoped the sister residents will have some kind of ministry with the students, according to Sister Charmaine.

In Wilton, Conn., Villa Notre Dame was closed and its 58 residents have moved to a retirement community in Bridgeport. Residents of Lourdes Health Care Center relocated in 2019 to Ozanam Hall, a geriatric care facility sponsored by the Carmelites. In both cases, the sisters continue to live in community.

“That’s one of our values, being together, praying together, meeting together,” she said.

Selling the properties is difficult.

“It’s such a loss,” Sister Charmaine said. “It’s their home. These buildings have always been their home.

“None of us pledged our lives to a building,” she noted. Instead the sisters’ mission – “to proclaim the good news, directing our entire lives toward that oneness for which Jesus Christ was sent” – goes with them wherever they go. “It never leaves us, our love for God, love for our sisters, love for our congregation.”

During the pandemic, the order also decided to close Baltimore’s Institute of Notre Dame in 2020.

“IND was a very hard loss for this entire community,” Sister Charmaine said. It was one of the first places that their foundress, Blessed Theresa Gerhardinger, visited when she came to the United States. Many sisters, indeed many Baltimoreans, were educated there.

“But it was a necessary thing to do,” she added. Enrollment was down and renovations were expected to be costly.

“We’re doing this for the sake of the mission,” Sister Charmaine said.

While the property is prepared for sale, the order remains committed to IND’s alumnae – and to the east Baltimore community.

She said the province is committed to finding a use for the building in line with its mission of education to transform the world. Caroline Center, a career training center for women, plans to stay on the IND campus.

“That’s a tall order for a developer,” Sister Charmaine said.

Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore has agreed to be a home for IND alumnae. Their new Heritage Room was dedicated Nov. 14 during the IND Alumnae Association reunion weekend. In addition, on Dec. 1, Gibbons Hall was renamed Caroline Hall in honor of Sister Caroline Friess, who with Mother Theresa brought the order to the United States.

“It’s a gift the university has given to IND and the SSNDs,” Sister Charmaine said.

Sister Caroline, who remained in the United States after Mother Theresa returned to Europe, purchased the land to found the College of Notre Dame, according to Caelie Haines, communications director for the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Sister Charmaine is beginning her 10th year in province leadership. Elected a councilor in 2012, her fellow sisters chose her to lead the Atlantic-Midwest Province in 2016. The pandemic forced the congregation to extend the terms two more years for her and her council and then led the General Council in Rome to appoint the council now taking office.

Bishop Bruce Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., auxiliary of Baltimore, will preside at the installation of Sister Charmaine and councilors Sisters Mary Roy Weiss, Mary Fitzgerald, Nancy Gilchriest, Paula Dukehart and Margaret Malone at Villa Assumpta Dec. 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, an S.S.N.D. feast day. Only a few sisters were scheduled to attend, but it was to be livestreamed.

While in normal times the province’s leadership travels from convent to convent, during the pandemic, Zoom sessions have served to keep everyone in touch.

“It was the only way we could communicate with our sisters since we couldn’t visit with them,” Sister Charmaine said.

The isolation required in larger convents, such as Villa Assumpta, has been difficult, but the sisters have adapted and learned the ways of the internet.

“A big part of us really is being community, being together,” Sister Charmaine said.

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